As Fleetwood Mac streams continue to rise following @doggface208’s and now Mick Fleetwood’s viral reply video sipping juice and listening to ‘Dreams‘, the songwriter herself, Stevie Nicks takes centre stage and releases her 24KaratConcert film and a new song ‘Show Them the Way‘
A surprise revival before the main feature
TikTok, the frenetic film sharing social media app recently became the unexpected source of a surprise chart success for Stevie Nicks the Grammy award winning and two time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, singer/songwriter.
As Stevie prepared for the launch of a new film of her 24 Karat Gold tour with an accompanying double album, a song she wrote for Fleetwood Mac re-entered the US Billboard Hot 100 for the first time since reaching the No.1 spot in 1977. The re-newed success for ‘Dreams’ is thanks to a TikTok clip. The song plays as Nathan Apodaca (@doggface208) rides a longboard drinking a large bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice. The short film went viral when Mick Fleetwood, of Fleetwood Mac, recreated the scene himself.
The film of gold
Stevie Nicks’ 24 Karat Gold Tour is about to be celebrated in celluloid, a film of the sell-out tour is screened around the world on the 21st and 25th of October 2020.
The filming and recording took place in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh in 2017 directed by Joe Thomas. As well as a set-list full of songs from Stevie’s solo career and Fleetwood Mac the film also reveals intimate inspirations and stories of some of her most famous songs.
Tickets for the screenings are available here:
https://www.stevienicksfilm.com
A: Why did you leave the Arizona desert behind for a second time in these last few years. We all thought you had found your place of contentment there?
S: I gave up my place in Phoenix and moved back to Pacific Pallisades by Santa Monica in Los Angeles to live by the beach. Phoenix is my original home city, and it’s extremely hot in the Arizona desert, so there were a lot of good reasons to drink and don’t forget that my Dad also became the chairman of Canadian Labatts beer, so it wasn’t like there was wasn’t alcohol around!
A: Why did you live in the desert and was it a bit spooky with all of the UFO sightings?
S: I lived for a while underneath the famous Camelback Mountain in Phoenix and I would sit outside and see white floating objects – a lot of them obviously aeroplanes – up in the sky. I actually used to call it the Space Highway because there are just spaceships being reported in that area all the time up there. It’s just like an episode of X Files some times. I’m sure that somewhere within the real aeroplanes I saw alien spaceships too. It was that creepy. I’d given up alcohol, and the drugs, so seeing little green men in spaceships probably wasn’t a good idea.
A: How did it feel to be back in LA after all of those years?
S: I lived just 10 minutes from Lindsey (Buckingham). He’s a family man now.
A: Apart from reliving the Fleetwood Mac days every day of your life what else comes back in your mind most frequently?
S: I go to see the boys in the Walter Reid and Bethesda injured war vets rehab centres (where Trump was recently). I wrote a song called ‘Soldier’s Angel for my solo album. With Lindsey actually, after I called him up and asked him if he’d play it. He said “Do you want us to play Landslide the classic Mac song.” But I said “No, we should play ‘Soldier’s Angel’ because without you playing guitar and singing on this song I could not emotionally have ever recorded the song.” Soldiers Angel’ started off as a poem that I wrote four years ago and I would hand it out to the soldiers on my hospital visits. But when I was in the UK in May 2009 seven brave soldiers lost their lives ‘massacred’ as I remember the headline screamed by Iraqi’s they were helping to train. I knew that in London’s 7/7 the murdered had been killed by mostly UK passport holders. Some who’d been given refugee statues now committing the ultimate betrayal. It was on the front pages of all the newspapers and I had a strong sense of deja vu walking around the streets of London that I knew what it must have been like to have been in England during World War Two. I felt like it so strongly that I thought ‘I’ve been here during the war.’
A: On that point tell me about how your enduring love affair with Lindsey? (Stevie has just revealed that she wrote him a personal get well letter after his heart attack two years ago).
S: It is what it is between Lindsey and I – a love affair, not reciprocated as it once was of course. As you put it, it still feels a little like the undying love affair, although he’s now a family man of course with three kids.
A: The hospital visits to see the war vets in Washington DC was another magnaminous gesture of yours.
S: Well I have I given away well over two thousand i-pods to the soldiers. Because it was a way to break the ice with each of the soldiers. And also most of them had their i-pods blown up there too. I fill them with Prince, some rap, some of my old stuff. Yes, I know I could probably call up Apple and ask for them to give me some, but I don’t care about that. I was so stricken the first time I walked out of the hospital having seen mostly 18 to 21 year old boys without arms, legs, half their faces. I go at least three times a year, flying in on a Sunday, put the i-pods and the music together on the Monday, then on Tuesday I go to Walter Reid Hospital and I sit there all day long with all of the injured soldiers who are mostly alone all day, because their families live hundreds or thousands of miles away.
A: How long do you tend to spend with the patients?
S: Well, I won’t leave until I’ve spent time with every single one of them. Sometimes Mick Fleetwood will fly in from Hawaii and come with me because he knows how upsetting it is for me. Then on Wednesday, I sit in my room and just try to assimilate, to understand the horror of what I’ve seen. Then on the Thursday I’ll go to Bethesda Naval Hospital in nearby Maryland to see more of the boys. By Friday I take the whole day off because I just freak out as a result of the experience. and then I fly home to LA on Saturday, a complete emotional wreck. Always.
A: You actually annoyed the authorities right with the video?
S: I made a video for ‘Soldiers’ Angel’ – which showed me pictured with US Iraq/Afghanistan war vets who have lost limbs or, worse..I find myself saying, when I see a certain face:”he’s not coming back”. I feel that if I release the video I thought that I might be banned by the US Govt from future visits to the Hospitals because it’s so graphic and horrfying. I showed it to two executives at Warners Brothers and they were stunned and too upset to speak afterwards.
A: So Fleetwood Mac….are you constantly in touch?
S: I see Christine (McVie) quite often. She never comes to the states any more because she hates to fly. Which is the reason why she no longer wanted to be in the band or tour with us any more a sea add ago. Christine and I are and the boys are all very, very good friends. John lives in Oahu, Hawaii and we speak on the phone, as I don’t do e-mails or own a computer. It was always his ultimate dream right from being a very young man to live there. He’s very happy. And Mick has a house nearby on Maui and also one down the street from me in L A where he lives with his wife and nine year old twin daughters who I’m godparent too. Mick and his family are exactly like ‘Meet The Fockers‘ except it’s ‘Meet The Fleetwoods‘. I always go to his and we watch the Grammy’s together or The Oscars. Not the Brits though. Hahahaha! I was sure we would always get back together every few years to play those amazing songs again.
A: Are you sometimes amazed that you survived the drugs, just being alive in your 70s must feel great?
S: I can’t believe that I’m actually alive it’s true. A plastic surgeon told me that if I took one more line of cocaine I would soon have a brain haemorrhage because you have completely destroyed your nose. Actually he told me that I could really drop dead someday. He was a really cool guy so I listened. And the nose is so close to the brain you can only push your body so far. So I stopped.
A: Your fans must really inspire you to carry on?
S: I get messages all the time from all over the world – like Australia and a girl called Lucy Miller in Melbourne told me the other day about how her best friend is called Rhiannon (named after my song about the Welsh Witch I wrote about over 40 years ago)l
A: How long do you feel like you can carry on performing?
S: I feel healthier than I’ve felt in 30 years because I’m sober, I don’t really drink any more and I don’t do drugs, although I drink too much coffee! I stay young because I want to. I can still jump down in to the splits if you want Andrew! I was not in good shape for many, many years. I am very, very blessed to still be here.
A: Why was that?
S: Prescription drug abuse nearly killed me as much as the cocaine. I’m pretty sure that after eight years on that stuff that if I’d not checked myself in to hospital for 47 days I would be dead. Absolutely. I would not be here today. I knew that I was on my way out. Also I ballooned from 120 to 175 pounds, because a particular doctor who didn’t care that the lights had gone out in my eyes thought that was the best thing to put me on after the cocaine. I think he was just like a groupie who just wanted to listen to all the Mac’ stories. I told off someone in England this week for the same abuse. They were saying: “I take a little bit of Tramazapan with my Ambien” and I was like “You’d better through that out! Are you crazy? It doesn’t help you sleep. Stop!!!!”
A: Your motto really is Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow
S: My career is never going to end. Ever.
